French woman kidnapped and held hostage in Yemen freed

Paris: A French woman who was abducted in Yemen in February has been freed, the French president's office said in a statement, adding that she would come back to France in the coming hours.

"Our compatriot Isabelle Prime has been freed tonight," the statement said, without providing any details on her liberation.

Prime and her Yemeni translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in the capital Sanaa on Febuary 24 while the pair were on their way to work. Yemeni tribal sources said in March that Prime would be released, but only Makawi was freed at the time.

In recent years tribesmen have taken foreigners hostage to press the government to provide them with services or to free jailed relatives.

Yemen is also home to one of the most active branches of al Qaeda, to which tribal kidnappers have reportedly often sold their kidnapped victims.

In June, France had authenticated a video that showed Prime, a consultant for Yemen's Social Fund for Development, crouching on sand and in distress. Dressed in black, she made her appeal to French President Francois Hollande and Yemen's Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi in English.

"Please bring me to France fast because I'm really, really tired," she had said in the video. "I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand."

The video first appeared on YouTube on May 4.